Oklahoma and the ever-changing meaning of the general manager title

The general managers at the NFL combine aren’t the only ones in the news, and you have questions…

From Chad:
As a Sooner fan, how excited should I be about the Jim Nagy hire? I know he is a great guest on the show, but how do you think he will do in this role? Give us some HOPE!!! 

From Mack:
Do you think more college football programs will hire general managers and start a trend?

My podcast partner Ari Wasserman also dug into this topic today. He examined what some of the new general manager hires mean for the people who have been managing talent acquisition for some of the biggest football programs.

We discussed this topic at length on Thursday’s show, and the part that interests me the most is how different the general manager job could look at different places. Oklahoma just hired Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy to be its general manager, and this appears to be the closest arrangement we’ve seen so far at the major college level to a traditional NFL general manager.

In most NFL franchises, the general manager sits either beside or slightly above the head coach on the organizational chart. (Even though the head coach usually makes a lot more money.) The GM handles personnel decisions — usually in consultation with the coaching staff — but also can be the link between the coaches and ownership. Ownership may keep the GM even if it changes coaches.

We saw the Bears fire coach Matt Nagy (no relation to Jim) and keep general manager Ryan Poles, who then helped choose Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as the Bears’ next coach. Jaguars owner Shad Khan fired coach Doug Pederson but shockingly kept general manager Trent Baalke, who had survived multiple coaching regimes. Khan only fired Baalke when it became clear no coach the Jaguars wanted was willing to work with Baalke, who everyone but Khan had identified as Jacksonville’s biggest impediment to success.

This is radically different from a college football operation, where the head coach ultimately has been responsible for all football decisions. And that’s still how it works in most places. Even at North Carolina, where former NFL GM Michael Lombardi has been hired to run the Tar Heels’ front office, the org chart could feel more like a traditional college football one. When new North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick coached the Patriots, he was one of the few NFL coaches who wielded absolute power like a college head coach traditionally has.

At Oklahoma, Nagy will report to athletic director Joe Castiglione and executive adviser Randall Stephenson. Stephenson, the former chairman of AT&T, will hold a role somewhat analogous to a president of football operations in the NFL. In the case of the Bears, GM Poles reports to team president Kevin Warren, who was the Big Ten commissioner before taking that job.

Nagy is a great choice for the Oklahoma job. He spent most of his career as an NFL scout, but his time at the Senior Bowl plunged him between the two worlds of the NFL and major college football. As dawn of the NIL/transfer portal era changed the college game, Nagy found himself counseling parties on the college and NFL side of the equation as players tried to decide whether to turn pro or take NIL money and NFL franchises tried to evaluate players who weren’t sure if they wanted to stay at their school, turn pro or go to a different school.

Nagy has a curious mind, and he’s flexible enough to roll with what inevitably will be an evolving position. Lots of people have ideas about how talent acquisition and retention will work in the coming revenue-sharing era, but no one yet knows how it will play out in practice. Nagy is smart enough to adapt. 

He’s also going to try to make life as easy as possible for coach Brent Venables. The fear among college head coaches is that GMs who don’t report to them will usurp their power. That might ultimately happen in some places, but coach and GM should understand that their best chance is to work together.

Venables is under a microscope this season. Oklahoma is not a place that accepts mediocrity, and two of Venables’ three seasons have been decidedly mediocre. The addition of Washington State transfer quarterback John Mateer — to run the offense directed by former Cougars coordinator Ben Arbuckle — should improve the Sooners. But if they’re just average again, then Nagy might wind up helping Castiglione find a new head coach. 

This would feel dramatically different than what we’ve seen previously in college football, but I don’t expect Oklahoma to be the only school that hires a GM to play this sort of role. As the parallels to the NFL become more obvious, more teams will begin to structure themselves as NFL teams do.

From Ryan:
I feel like there is a major issue that is being overlooked for 13 automatic qualifiers in a 14-team field.  With only a single at-large team, you are opening yourself to disaster if an awesome third place Big Ten/SEC team loses in an upset against the 6th place team. Or similarly if an awesome first place ACC/Big 12 team loses in an upset against the fourth place team.

Imagine a scenario where an 11-1 Ohio State is in third place due to tiebreakers, and loses to 9-3 Iowa because their QB goes down to a short term injury in the first quarter. And imagine ND is 11-1 as well.  That means that only one of OSU/ND will be playing for the national championship. That is a faulty system.

With a 16-team field, it should be fine. With three at-large teams, there is a buffer for this type of thing happening. But with a single at-large team, it WILL happen. Not every year, but absolutely will happen here and there.

Ryan isn’t wrong. We suspect that the Big Ten and SEC’s ultimate plan for the College Football Playoff in 2026 and beyond is a 14-team field that will have 13 automatic qualifiers (four Big Ten, four SEC, two ACC, two Big 12, the highest ranked champ of the other leagues, one at-large). We also suspect that conference championship weekend will evolve into a series of play-in games featuring No. 3 vs. No. 6 and No. 4 vs. No. 5 in the Big Ten and SEC and No. 1 vs. No. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3 in the ACC and Big 12.

If this happens, the scenario Ryan spun in his question absolutely could happen. The one at-large spot is clearly a nod to Notre Dame, which has been a valuable ally of the Big Ten and SEC and which prioritizes its football independence. 

Here’s another possibility. What if the ACC is absurdly stacked at the top one year? What if Clemson, Florida State, Miami and Louisville are all loaded, and those teams are just as good or better than the best four teams in the Big Ten or SEC. The ACC would be able to get three teams at most into the tournament, and it might only get two if Notre Dame is excellent that season. 

A tournament that just matches the 14 best teams regardless of conference would be more fun and would give us more to argue about during the season. But suits like certainty. And with the Big Ten and SEC wresting control away from everyone else, they’re going to get what they want.

Ryan’s suggestion that a 16-team tournament alleviates some of these potential issues is correct, but I as I wrote last week, I think the Big Ten and SEC will do whatever makes the most money and sense for the Big Ten and SEC. If the field is 14 teams, it allows those leagues to stage a No. 1 vs. No. 2 title game with a bye (and a conference title) on the line. That allows their cash cow conference games to remain relevant, and since they keep all the money from those games, they’ll fight to protect them.

A Random Ranking

From Auburn Elvis:

A little late but, Which 5 Saturday Night Live skit characters would make the best starting quarterbacks?

I’m glad Auburn Elvis didn’t want me to rank recurring SNL skit characters as QBs, because I doubt very seriously that Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, Hans, Franz or Dieter from Sprockets could spin it. Now I have a chance to link a classic Joe Montana sketch.

1. Tom from Tom Brady’s Falafel City (Tom Brady)
2. Sincere Guy Stu (Joe Montana)
3. Peyton Manning from the United Way commercial (Peyton Manning)
4. Billy “The Gun” Van Goff (Steve Martin)
5. John Belushi from the Little Chocolate Donuts commercial (John Belushi)